


Not Today

by LakeHermione



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-10
Updated: 2018-09-10
Packaged: 2019-07-10 11:13:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15948188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LakeHermione/pseuds/LakeHermione
Summary: In which M.K. and Mrs. S have teamed up pre-canon and it’s almost unfair.





	Not Today

 “Not today, chicken” said the woman as she grabbed Beth Childs from behind and pulled her back from the edge of the train platform.

Beth’s eyes swam back into focus, as she mumbled, “What are you doing?”

“Well, that should be obvious, love” she smiled, “I’m stopping you. Now grab your things Elizabeth. We need to get you out of here quickly.”

“Who the hell are you?” said Beth as fear crept in and she tried unsuccessfully to jerk herself away.

“Calm down. You have questions. I’ve got answers,” she smiled, “but not now, not here. Come on then.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you” snapped Beth defiantly.

“God, do I know that tone,” sighed the woman with a slight chuckle, “Now hear me out. I know what you’re mixed up in and I’m here to help and if you promise not to run or do anything stupid, I can prove it to you, okay?”

Beth stared her down for a moment and then nodded curtly while she weighed her options. She could use her leverage to break free of the woman’s grasp but something about this woman gave her pause. She seemed almost...familiar?  The woman then released one of her arms and slowly reached into her pocket.  Beth stiffened as all of her police trained senses went haywire in anticipation of a gun. 

“Easy now” said the woman, “I’m just reaching for my phone. See?”  The woman then swiped it alive and made a call that was answered immediately. 

The voice at the other end of the line sounded anxious. “Yes. I’ve got her…Yes, she’s fine. Now deary, would you please tell Elizabeth that I’m a friend” said the woman as she pressed the phone against Beth’s ear.

“Oh thank god” bleated out the familiar voice at the other end of the call.

“M.K.?” asked Beth nonplussed, “What’s going on? Who the hell is this?”

“She is a friend. Please…you must trust me. Let us help you,” said M.K., her voice crackling with emotion.

“You can’t help me. No one can. They said…” choked Beth, her eyes welling with tears.

“Well we can’t have any of that talk. Now listen…my name is Siobhan and I’ve got loads to tell you.  You’ve been so very brave and now it’s time for you to have a little help. You don’t have to do this alone. We’ll take them down together, alright?” said the woman. 

***

A half hour later, Beth found herself sitting round a scrubbed kitchen table in the kitchen of a boarded up restaurant in a sketchy neighborhood on the outskirts of town. 

“Here you are” said Siobhan setting down two steaming mugs of tea just as the door swung open to reveal a highly agitated M.K. carrying not one, but two laptops.

“Easy now, M.K. I’ve got her and she’s all right.”

“Where did you find her?” asked M.K. as she locked eyes with Beth who quickly looked away.

“At the train station” said Siobhan in a light tone.

M.K. turned to stare at Siobhan, “How did you know?”

“I had a little help in that department” said Siobhan gesturing toward a bedroom with the door closed.

“She can do that?” asked M.K. with interest.

“Sometimes” smiled Siobhan.

“Is someone going to tell me what the hell this is?” asked Beth.

Just then Siobhan’s phone buzzed.  She picked up her phone and muttered “took her long enough” to herself as she answered. “Hello?..What?....I can’t hear a goddamned thing you’re saying!  Listen to me…No listen!  We need you at the western safe house…NOW young lady!...What?...Well, now you’re back on the bloody clock!  Hello? Hello?”

“Was that Sarah? We’re going to need her, yes?” said M.K.

Siobhan nodded, “Indeed.”

“Who the hell’s Sarah? Jesus, M.K.! First you drag me into all this…and then…what else are you keeping from me?” sputtered Beth.

“Beth,” whispered M.K. as tears rolled down her cheeks, “Please no….You must believe me….I only wanted to protect you…you’re too important….Only to protect you, I promise.” 

Beth softened and sighed, “Alright, who’s Sarah then?”

M.K.’s mouth turned up slightly, “She is…ah…one of us and she’s…very good at improvising, like a chameleon and…”

“And completely unreliable” groused Siobhan, “Can you trace the call?”

“Yes, of course” snapped M.K. reverting to her more familiar businesslike tone as she sat down at the table and started pecking away at one of her laptops.

“Hang on….Sarah as in Manning?” asked Beth.

“Oh you know about her, do you?  Well, aren’t you full of surprises. She’s good, this one, isn’t she?” smiled Siobhan.

“Yes. Very” said M.K. with a shy smile of her own, “She is currently at the Nomad Lounge over on Third Avenue.”

“I’ll send Felix to collect her immediately” snapped Siobhan.

“Listen, I don’t know what’s going on, but I can’t be here. You don’t understand. They’re going to kill my family and Paul and Alison and Cosima.”

“No, they won’t, dear” smiled Siobhan, “I have protection in place monitoring both of your parent’s homes as well as the Hendrix house.  Cosima is aware of the threat and currently working in another of our safe houses across town and Paul is…” she paused, “more than capable of taking care of himself.”

“How did you…?  Wait, Cosima’s in on this too? Jesus Christ M.K. what is this? You’ve been working with…Siobhan is it? Behind my back! Why?”

“Yes. I mean no. I mean I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you everything.  It twas for your safety, but now…” sputtered M.K.

“Now,” interrupted Siobhan, “you’re in way too deep so we’re bringing you the rest of the way in to keep you safe.”

“I can’t trust anybody” said Beth.

“Aaah, but you can. Let me explain. I’ll start at the beginning” said Siobhan.

***

Forty-five minutes later, Beth’s head was swimming trying to process it all—Neolution, the clone disease, the monitor program, the Dyad, Topside, the Prolethians, Helena the clone who’d been brainwashed to kill other clones and the protracted fight to control Projects Leda and Castor.

“So, let me get this straight- we’re all cloned from your mother so the Neos can like build a better human, one faction of Neos wants to protect, but control us, and another wants to wipe us out as an obsolete technology, but there’s also another religious faction that wants to kill us all because we’re scientific abominations and they’ve trained one of us to hunt and kill the rest of us, but it may not matter anyway since we all have a terminal autoimmune disorder.  Am I leaving anything out?” said Beth with her head in her hands.

“Well, just the part about our brothers bred by the military to be a biological weapons” said M.K. with a blithe wave of hand as she scanned the lines of code on her computer, “But they are also suffering from a terminal illness that effects the brain.”

“Right” deadpanned Beth.

“Oh and Siobhan,” said M.K., “Felix says he has Sarah and they are en route. He says she is ‘somewhat sober’ and ‘not pleased.’”

“Well that sounds about right,” muttered Siobhan, then turning to Beth, “I know it’s a lot “but we’re not without allies and we have some tricks of our own up our sleeve.  For one we have something the rest of them do not--the original Leda and Castor genome and Professor Ethan Duncan has defected to our side.  He is in hiding and working with Cosima to develop a cure for the autoimmune disorder. We have M.K. here who has hacked into the Dyad and unbeknownst to them is monitoring all of their communications, we have a Dyad mole on the inside and now we have you—a brilliant police officer with resources and access to Interpol so we can work to bring Helena in.”

“Helena?”

“The brainwashed religious killer clone” said M.K.

“Right. Well, I hate to break it to you but after tomorrow I probably won’t be a police officer.  I shot and killed an unarmed civilian and tomorrow’s the inquest” said Beth.

“No, chicken--you shot and killed a Prolethian who was following you so Helena could take you out after they discovered that Katja Obinger was in contact with you.”

“What?” said Beth, stunned.

“That’s right,” nodded Siobhan, “Maggie Chen was tracking you so she could identify the self-aware North American clones. If you hadn’t shot her, Katja, Tony, Alison and Cosima probably wouldn’t be alive today.”

“I, I…didn’t know” stammered Beth.

“I wanted to tell you.  I knew it twas killing you” said M.K., “but until last night it would have put you in too much danger.”

“But now I’m in so much danger it doesn’t matter does it?” said Beth.

“Yes. I am afraid so, but we’re going to protect you” said M.K.

“How?” said Beth.

“Tomorrow you disappear for a while” said Siobhan.

“What about the hearing?” said Beth.

“Don’t worry about that, love. We’ve got that under control” smiled Siobhan.

“What?” said Beth.

Just then the door swung open to reveal a tall thin young man in dramatic eye make-up and dressed from head to toe in black.  He stopped short at seeing Beth which caused the woman trailing behind him, also wearing black leather, to stumble into his back.

“The hell, Fe?”

“Oh, now I see. They brought the cop in, didn’t they?” said Felix brightly. 

“Elizabeth, these two degenerates are my children Sarah and Felix--the wayward banes of my existence and the loves of my life. Now I need you two to focus. We have an emergency on our hands.  Elizabeth here has had quite a night and we’re going to need her to disappear for a while but maybe not completely if you know what I mean.”

“Right. Figured it was somethin’ like that if you made this one hack my phone again” grumbled Sarah as she sat down heavily and glared in M.K’s direction.  

“Tracking your phone is not hacking you, Sarah” said M.K. from behind her computer screen as she pecked away, “How many times must I tell you this? It is a setting on your phone. But if you do not like it you simply go to the settings menu, scroll down and….”

“Okay, okay. Just stop, alright? You know damn well I don’t know what you’re on about.  Anyway…Right…” said Sarah as she looked back at Beth and grinned, “Nice ta meet ya, Elizabeth.”

Beth shook her head and chuckled, “Hi.”

“So what’s happened then?” asked Sarah.

Siobhan looked at Beth, “Sorry, love, but I’m going to have to be blunt here” and then turning to Sarah and Felix she continued, “Elizabeth here took a few too many pills then went a bit off the rails tonight. She held a gun to Susan Duncan’s head and—you’re going to like this one—pistol whipped our friend Evie Cho tonight within an inch of her life and now she needs our help.”

“Brilliant” smiled Sarah which caused M.K. to snicker behind her computer.

M.K. reached over and put her hand on Beth’s hand, “Don’t worry. 68.4% of us have problems with substance abuse.”

“What?” said Beth.

“’S fine.  Don’t listen to her” said Sarah, “She’s addicted to video games you know.”

“I am not!”

“Are too!”

“Enough, you two! Can we please focus? Now Elizabeth needs to disappear tonight, but as you know we need her to stay a cop.”

“That’s where I come in, yeah?” smirked Sarah.

“Yeah. So Felix we need you to go collect some of Elizabeth’s things and Sarah you need a plan to buy her some time for her hearing tomorrow.” said Siobhan.

“Oh for the Maggie Chen thing, yeah?” said Sarah.

“Exactly” said Siobhan.

“I don’t get it” scoffed Beth.

“Sarah is very good” interjected M.K.

“You don’t mean…?”

Sarah peered over at Beth, sat up straight from her slouching position, rolled her head back and forth a few times and then said “Detective Elizabeth Childs, at your service” in a perfect facsimile of Beth’s accent.

“No” said Beth.

“Yeah” said Sarah with a grin as she got up and began studying Beth’s appearance in the round. “Now, lessee, I’ll straighten my hair…you’re eye make-up is just on the bottom, yeah? Put on some of your stuffy clothes and we’ll be good to go.”

“But the inquest?” stammered Beth.

“Don worry about it. I’ll figure somethin’ out,” said Sarah with the wave her hand. And for some strange reason Beth almost believed her.  
   
   
   
   
                 
   
 


End file.
